Pharmacist tells of warning to Anna Nicole doctor

The Associated Press, Wednesday, August 18, 2010, 12:53pm (PDT)

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The second pharmacist to testify in two days at the Anna Nicole Smith drug conspiracy trial said Wednesday he warned a psychiatrist that she would wind up as a tabloid headline if she prescribed a powerful sleeping drug to the celebrity model.

Witness Steve Mazlin said he told Dr. Khristine Eroshevich, a defendant in the case, that the two drugs she was prescribing could be "a deadly combination."

Mazlin also recalled encountering an agitated Eroshevich at the door of his pharmacy hours before it opened on Sept. 11, 2006.

"She proceeded to tell me Anna Nicole Smith's son had just passed, and she was leaving for the Bahamas and needed to take some medications with her," he recalled.

He said Eroshevich asked for a fast-acting antidepressant and settled on a liquid version of Ativan. She then told him she wanted the sleeping agent chloral hydrate, according to the testimony.

"I told her I wouldn't recommend her giving chloral hydrate unless she wanted her picture on the cover of the National Enquirer," Mazlin testified.

He said he explained both drugs were potent respiratory depressants and, "if she had anything to drink, it's a deadly combination."

He said Eroshevich was undeterred.

"She said it wouldn't be a problem, that Smith wasn't exposed to alcohol, that she just had a baby, was in the hospital and would be under Dr. Eroshevich's supervision," Mazlin testified.

Eroshevich, Dr. Sandeep Kapoor and attorney Howard K. Stern have pleaded not guilty to conspiring to unlawfully provide excessive drugs to Smith, prescribing to an addict and obtaining false prescriptions involving the use of fake names. They are not charged with causing her overdose death in 2007.

Earlier, pharmacist Ira Freeman was cross-examined about his previous testimony that a list of drugs requested by Eroshevich and Kapoor on Sept. 15, 2006 would have killed Smith if administered in the dosages requested. He said he refused to fill the order.

On questioning by defense lawyer Steve Sadow, who represents Stern, Freeman acknowledged the request was "a shopping list," and legal prescription request forms were never filed.